Description: A riveting, in-the-room account of the pivotal six months in 1941 that turned the tide of World War II, as Churchill and Roosevelt forged a crucial alliance and Hitler squandered his early advantage--from the New York Times bestselling author of Road to Surrender
"A vital, compelling story told brilliantly and beautifully by a master of dramatic narrative . . . No one does minute-by-minute history better than Evan Thomas."--Jon Meacham In the summer of 1941, Winston Churchill was desperate--for two years, Britain had stood alone against Germany, heavily battered by the Blitz as another season of grinding war loomed. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the ally Churchill needed most, was coyly evading any commitment to join the war; Americans, FDR knew, weren't worried enough about the Axis to risk sending their sons overseas. Meanwhile for an arrogant Adolf Hitler, whose war machine had already swept across Europe and now looked poised any day to take Moscow, the continent seemed all but won. By late December, though, Churchill would be lighting the White House Christmas tree with Roosevelt as an open ally, while in Berlin, basic supplies would be running out in an omen of the years to come. In the course of a few months, the war's direction was critically, permanently reversed--a result of crucial strategic calls made by the Allies, and of equally vital missteps by the Axis. Hitler's early advantage, once fumbled, would never be regained. To bring these heart-pounding decisions to life, historian Evan Thomas vividly takes us into the war rooms of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Hitler. Placing us inside the span of a few months that would redefine the course of the war--as Churchill implores Roosevelt at a secret meeting in the Atlantic, as Hitler tries to parse German intelligence reports from D.C.--The Hour Strikes grants us intimate access to the men who would redefine a world.Review Quotes: "A vital, compelling story told brilliantly and beautifully by a master of dramatic narrative. No one does minute-by-minute history better than Evan Thomas."--Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of And There Was Light
"This thrilling, fast-paced story takes you inside the war rooms and bunkers where history was made and democracy was saved in the summer of 1941. With amazing research and compelling writing, it reveals the decisions of Hitler, Roosevelt, and Churchill that brought America into World War II. It's an exciting read and also an important one, filled with lessons for today about standing up to authoritarianism."--Walter Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of The Code Breaker
"What accounts for sheer courage? Moment by moment, this book reveals a psychic recipe for leadership that feels as vital to our world today as it was in 1941. It completely swept me away."--Evan Osnos, National Book Award-winning author of Age of Ambition "Evan and Oscie Thomas have delivered a ticking-clock narrative that takes you inside the room of those crucial moments of the singular year that shaped the modern world. The Hour Strikes brings new urgency to a world racing into an uncertain future, where the decisions of the few will soon affect the lives of the many, and where history is yet unwritten."--Catherine Grace Katz, author of Shadow Before the Flame "Husband-and-wife authors examine a pivotal year in wartime. . . . It's an often fascinating look at [Churchill, Roosevelt, and Hitler's] off-stage lives, spiced with quotes from diaries and other first-hand accounts of those who dealt with them on a daily basis. . . . Narrated in the present tense, the book has a cast of characters that would be the envy of any novelist. Even readers broadly familiar with the course of the war are likely to find something new here. How the U.S. entered World War II--a well-paced and richly detailed account."--Kirkus Reviews